How to scratch DJ with DMC World Champion JFB
Brighton based musician JFB is undoubtedly one of the UK’s finest scratch DJs and he has the accolades to prove it including winning three DMC Championships and winning trophies at competitions such as Red Bulls 3Style.
Backed by the likes of Fatboy Slim and Rob Da Bank, JFB has made a name for itself with sets spanning club and party DJing, competition routines and showcases.
At this year’s Brighton Music Conference, Si Truss learned more about the gear he uses, what makes him unique as a DJ, and the work that goes into preparing his scratch routines.
How did you get into DJing?
“I was 16 and I went to a rave. At this point, mixtapes were being passed around the school. I went to this rave and had the time of my life. And I looked at the DJs and I couldn’t see what they were doing. I thought they used synths because all I knew on TV was Prodigy. And I saw something like a Roland 303 or whatever. Then a school friend invited me to his house and said he had DJ equipment. I was surprised to see that it was just turntables and a mixer. He showed me basic mixing and the next day I went and got myself some hi-fi turntables and whatever cassette players I could use to try and replicate the mixing. From there it was easy.”
Nowadays they use a digital approach based on Serato. What’s the point?
“With Serato you can use any audio that’s in your laptop, computer, phone or whatever you use, meaning you can have as much music as you want, wherever you have it. You can also sample anything and edit the music to correlate with your scratching, turntablism, or mixing, or anything else you want to do.”
What equipment would you recommend for complete newbies just starting out in the art of turntablism?
“Anything that allows you to make any kind of noise by scratching on a turntable, whether it’s a regular vinyl turntable, a controller, or a CDJ. Anything that has a plate that you can move.”
What is the difference between putting together a club set, a competition routine, or a showcase?
“In clubs, festivals, parties or other dance environments, it’s not a good idea to do anything too technical. People are there because they want to dance and they don’t necessarily care about turntablism skills. So in this case I’d be doing a party set, but I’d throw in some scratch routines that I’ve tailored to hopefully keep people on the dance floor while also garnering the hype and attention of the crowd.
“For a competition I would go about it as technically as possible. I’ll also keep in mind what I think the judges will give good grades for. Then for showcases I would probably just do non-stop scratch routines – some easier, some more technical.”
How much planning do you put into all these sets? Do you always know exactly what is going to happen in advance?
“Non-stop planning! For every gig I’ll probably make a playlist of something I think I’m going to do, then I have about 10 or 20 more playlists that come in and out completely randomly. Because obviously you’re looking at the crowd and you kind of have to go with the flow of what’s going on with them.”
Do you also prepare tracks apart from Serato?
“Yes many. I do a lot of scratch routines where, for example, there’s a well-known track that people probably know and they want to do a scratch remix of it. I grab the track and edit left and right deck versions of it to correlate with the stickers on my records, which are my markers. I use these stickers heavily to keep time when manipulating the arrangement in the scratch routines.”
Tell us a little more about the decals you put on your control vinyl. What are these markings for?
“Most people will use the sticker at the 12 o’clock position. I’ll place it where the needle would land if I were using a real turntable, if that makes sense. This is the most convenient visual marker for me to quickly return to. However, it doesn’t matter how you place them, because whatever practice you’ve had, you’ll gain some muscle memory.
“It’s about building a kind of visual muscle memory that helps with hand-eye coordination. You know the sticker has to be in this place. Since you’re not using headphones to train what you’re doing, just do it visually instead.”
Say goodbye to DJing for a moment and tell us a little bit about your studio setup…
“I have my Kaoss Pads – I have a Kaoss Pad 3 and a Kaoscillator that I use to create tones and sounds. I often use Loopcloud to find samples that are in key. You can listen to whatever you’re looking for in Loopcloud while playing whatever you’re playing.
“I use Logic mostly for audio editing, when it comes to routines, and just to work with effects and stuff. As far as hardware goes, it’s mostly about using my mixer to route things. So I do a lot of searching on YouTube for vocal samples – quotes and such – and when I hear something, rather than trying to rip the audio through a website, I just record it by running it through my desk and maybe apply effects to it and such things.
“I have some valve warmers, but I rarely use them. Synths: I have a 2008 microKORG, which is amazing. I use the vocoder for this quite often. I actually routed this synth through my mixer while scratching. Using Ableton, I figured out which chords I wanted to play through which routine, and then set up my MIDI pads to trigger MIDI through Ableton to play chords on the microKORG. So I had eight different chords in Ableton, and every time I hit a different pad, it just triggered each chord in a loop, so it just kept going.”
As it sounds, your production workflow affects how you prepare DJ sets quite a bit. How important do you think it is for aspiring turntablists to learn this production side?
“It’s very helpful, but I don’t think it matters at all. You only use what you have. And there are so many endless ways to do it all. You don’t necessarily have to have that much gear. But it’s nice to have. And it is fun.”
How difficult was it for you to make a career as a DJ?
“It can be difficult. Sometimes not. You may be lucky. I remember getting a job at a nightclub when I was 18. The Beach Club which is now Coalition here in Brighton. I was a collector of backbar glass. I used to take a stack of records with me every night. I had a deal with the manager who worked there that if I got there an hour early and cleaned the entire bar for everyone he would DJ me on the premises before the club opened for as long as it took to warm up -DJ showed up. Occasionally that night the DJ would not show up for five or ten minutes or whatever.
“They had a regular rotation of promoters. There was Fatboy Slim’s event, Big Beach Party, they had a drum and bass party called Meltdown, some Ninja Tune parties – it’s so late 90’s so it was amazing. Occasionally the promoters approach me. And then I ended up getting, you know, some little bar gigs, kind of stuff that led to club gigs, that led to residencies, that led to other stuff…”
How different do you think it is for DJs trying to break into the scene today? With things like Instagram and TikTok, has the internet made it easier or harder?
“No, it’s bloody incredible to use as a tool. Like anything, it can be as frustrating as it is amazing, but it’s helped my career so much. I was just doing scratching videos and that’s how a lot of people got to know me. That’s why so many organizers booked me. I mean it also backfired because there are a lot of promoters who think I’m just doing scratch routines and don’t want to book me because they think the dance floor will be empty or something. But you know, there are mixes online, there are videos of me playing – the internet is an amazing thing.”
Tell us about your setup: using a pair of Rane 12 controllers?
“Right, the Rane 12 MkIIs.”
These emulate the feel of vinyl turntables. What is your relationship to physical records these days, do you still buy and play vinyl?
“No not at all. But I absolutely love it. I have a special setup [at home] made up of a scratch mixer and a turntable on either side. Then I have a big stack of old battle records. I use this to repair my scratch. But right now, the day I got Serato was the day I stopped buying records. That was in 2006.
“I mean, I love records – I love the sound of records. I love walking into a venue and being like, ‘Oh, they’re playing records. Oh, it’s fun because it’s all these rare funk records. It is wonderful. But I just can’t do what I want with records. Well I can… but I would have to buy a lot of them!”
What mixer are you using?
“I have the Pioneer S11. You can use pretty much any blender though. Most scratch mixers these days come with built-in sound cards that have about two USB ports on the back. That means plugging in your laptop or running your DVS system. Then most of them have MIDI USB inputs too – so the two Ranes go into the MIDI inputs of the mixer and it just picks it up. Then it all works in Serato’s internal mode.”
What do you think makes your mixing style unique in the industry?
“I think the reason I’m unique – luckily – is that nobody wants to take risks by making routines from scratch. For example, if you make a mistake, it sounds terrible. And once I start my routines I can’t stop because I edited the audio.
“For example, I could drop a record on a turntable and if I don’t interact with it the way I should or I forget to do something there, it will just keep playing and there’s suddenly a gap in the music. Then suddenly the music comes back in, but it doesn’t make any sense – it won’t be in time. Yes. I don’t know anyone who does scratch routines like me.”
Did that ever lead to any disasters during the performance?
“Totally. But it’s a risk I’m willing to take. It’s really rare for something really bad to happen. One of the main reasons I want to use these decks is that the sticker position doesn’t move, which really helps. But if I can’t take that setup with me, I use regular Technics with needles and timecode recording.”